Neon Tetras die in succession?

Question

I had a small 10-gallon tank set that I purchased and set up. After running the tank for 5 days without fish I purchased four neon tetras to start the tank. They were active and eating for about two full days. Then one died and I promptly removed him. Later I found one of them, struggling to swim around. It seemed like if a current from the filter caught him, or he stopped concentrating, he would flip upside down. When he did move around it seemed almost as if one side of him was paralyzed. As the minutes went on it seemed harder and harder for him not to flip upside down, until he finally died. This same thing happened about every 12 hours until all were dead. What happened? I emptied the water and rerinsed everything off and filled it back up. I used store bought stuff for eliminating the bad chemicals out of tap water and the pH is 7.2 a day later. How should I procede and what fish should I add? I want to end up with a good group of small schoaling fish and one or two other ones.

Answer 1

Neons are absolutely not the fish to cycle a new tank with. They are very delicate little fish and will not tolerate poor water quality like you get while cycling a tank.

You should get some (4 at first) zebra danios or white clouds, they are hardy schooling fish and will tolerate the higher levels of ammonia, nitrites and nitrates in a new tank.

You should also be doing partial (25%) water changes every 4 days to control the ammonia spike while your beneficial bacteria build up in the filter and on the surfaces in the tank. Once you have cycled the tank (2-3 weeks), you can add more, up to 10 small fish, of whatever you like and move the partial water changes to once a week.

Partial water changes are the single most important thing you can do to keep you tank healthy and disease free. Never change 100% of the water in a tank unless it is an emergency. It removes all of the beneficial bacteria that help control the ammonia and nitrites.... then you have to completely recycle the tank from the beginning (two to three weeks).

Just remember, neons need very soft acid water (pH of about 6.5) to prosper. The others are happy with whatever they get as long as it is stable. 7.2 will be fine for the other fish I mentioned.

Let me know how it turns out. Good luck!

Answer 2

You should get a good book on fishkeeping, and learn how to do it before you think of getting any fish.

Your tank needs to be cycled before you stock it, and you can either do that with hardy fish or by doing a fishless cycle. The tank will not be ready until the water is chemically safe for the fish to live in.

Incidentally, pH is the least of your problems. Check ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. Only when the first two are at zero is it safe to add most fish.

Answer 3

Neons aren't good fish to cycle a tank, and 5 neons in a 10 gallon all at once is a bad. Idea in a tank that big you shouldn't be adding more than 1 fish a week, and should be watching your ammonia levels closely.

Also given your water's pH is 7.2 you might have hard water. Neons prefer softer acidic water. I've check your kH (carbonate hardness) if it higher than 8 consider livebearers (guppy, platty, swordtail..), or gourami. If you want a schooling fish Danios, and White cloud might be a good choice.

Answer 4

Neons are very delicate fish, and they were killed by an ammonia spike.

In the wild, and in established tanks, there are bacterial colonies (they are nitrifying bacteria). When fish poop, or when leftover fishfood rots, toxic ammonia is produced. These bacteria break down the ammonia into less toxic nitrates.
There are several ways to obtain these bacteria.
You can buy some Bio-Spira, which is the actual live bacteria
http://fishstoretn.com/bio_spira.html - some petstores sell products like Cycle, which is the dead bacteria, and it's completely useless. Total waste of money.
You can also obtain a filter sponge or/and some gravel from an established fishtank. Lots of bacteria in there.
Those are the two methods to instantly cycle your tank (well, it takes about a day)
You can also put a source of ammonia into the tank (like a piece of shrimp, or some fish food every other day. Or you can put a fish in which will produce ammonia. It takes 2-5 weeks to build up enough bacteria. Until then, your fish are suffering from an ammonia burn, so keep doing water changes (up to 30%, once every few days) to keep the ammonia levels down.

As for stocking, you could have one school of 6-8 fish, maybe neon tetras, cardinal tetras, or harlequin rasboraharlequin rasbora http://tropicalresources.net/phpBB2/templates/BMan1Blue/images/profile_pics/fish_profiles_heteromorpha1.jpg
And you could have one male dwarf gourami http://www.biol.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/users/naibunpi/Image/Gourami-photo-old.jpg
Or one male betta http://www.bettatalk.com/images/Blue_splash_marble_DT_male.gif
Or a pair of platies http://www.elmersaquarium.com/image_fish/01_Platy_MICKEY_MOUSE.jpg

Your pH is fine. Ammonia, and Nitrites are the mots important thing to test for.

I suggest you try to do fishless cycling, or using biospira or some gravel or filter sponge for another tank. That's the quickest, easiest, painless (for your fish) way :)

Good luck!
If you need more info, try http://www.fishforums.com

Answer 5

Sounds like what did kill them was the chemicals in the water, not positive though, make sure your filter isn't too big for that size of tank, the fish may have a hard time eating, swimming, etc. Not 100% sure.